


Miscellany of Root and Shaw

by RedRidingHood



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: F/F, Ficlet Collection, One Shot Collection
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-09 05:12:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 6,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4335158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedRidingHood/pseuds/RedRidingHood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Small collection of ficlets that are non-linear, unrelated and too short to exist as stand alone stories.<br/>All inspired by one word or small phrases.</p>
<p>(M-Rated 8th Chapter.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Believe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You don’t believe in her.” It was more of a statement than a question. “There’s not a lot I believe in.”

**Believe**

 

“You don’t believe in Her.”

It was more of a statement than a question, Root’s eyes burning into hers with a sense of disbelief and a hint of contempt that Shaw had never seen directed at her – at least not from the brunette before her, who usually gave her a flirtatious smirk and the occasional look of adoration that Shaw pretended to ignore.

“There’s not a lot I believe in,” Shaw shrugged.

“But She-,” Root began, a fierce spark in her eyes that Shaw had learnt was only associated with The Machine.

“I can’t believe in a robot,” the words were quiet on Shaw’s tongue, “or an AI, or whatever it is.”

“But She saved you, She saved us; She saved everyone!” Root protested, “She’s not some figurative God, She’s real Shaw.”

“She’s helped us, sure. I understand she’s there, I understand what she does, but to believe in her the way you do? I don’t have that faith in anything,” Shaw watched Root, the passion burning in her eyes, her entire existence consumed by the unwavering conviction that Shaw couldn’t begin to understand, but could sometimes admire.

“I didn’t believe in anything. Not until Her,” Root admitted, “She gave me something to have faith in.”

Shaw opened her mouth but couldn’t find anything to say. She and Root were exactly the same, and nothing alike at the same time. There was nothing Shaw could say; there was nothing about this that she understood in the same way as Root. The Machine, although proven useful, was still in a manner, intangible; and Shaw couldn’t trust anything that couldn’t be laid bare before her.

She didn’t understand The Machine. Didn’t understand how She was made, or what made Her work. And it was impossible for her to have faith in something she just didn’t comprehend.

She had faith in Root.

Root had been laid bare before her both physically and emotionally, Shaw understood Root.

She understood Root as a human being; as a body. She understood how bodies were crafted and how they functioned. Human beings she understood.

She understood Root as a person; as a mind and a character. Sure, she didn’t know everything about Root’s mind, and Root’s past, but she understood what she knew. She could have faith in what she knew.

“I have faith,” Shaw began, “A little, but I have faith in Finch, in Reese, in you, in me, hell sometimes even Fusco. I believe in us, and in what we do; even if we don’t win. I have faith in what I know.”

Root looked forlorn, looking away before returning to look directly at Shaw; “She believes in you Sameen, even if you don’t believe in her.”


	2. Awkward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Their first /kiss/ kiss had been awkward, a collision of chins and hands and fear, but this one; this one was perfect. No guns. No broken elevators. No-one watching.

**Awkward**

 

They had fucked before in abstract rooms and dark alleys; a blazing union of bodies, sparking fingertips and ember-like breaths. They had kissed in molten moments; bruising, harsh, parallel to the inferno their bodies danced in. It was sex and nothing more; it wasn’t a relationship, it wasn’t love. Their kisses were punctuated with biting and fingernails digging into skin. They didn’t mean anything.

 Their first _kiss_ kiss had been awkward. A collision of chins, and hands, and fear. A goodbye of sorts that was mingled with a childish hope that everything would be okay.

Their first _kiss_ kiss had been awkward, watched, and hurried.

But this one; this one was perfect.

 For one thing, they were alone.

Fusco had gone home; reassured that Shaw was alive, and that she wasn’t plagued by some Samaritan bug that was going to cause her to destroy them all.

Reese and Finch had left the subway station an hour ago, Finch pulling at Reese’s arm and murmuring niceties about giving them time to catch up.

They had spent that entire hour in content silence. Watching the other. Observing. Committing every small detail and every slight change to memory.

Root had broken the silence.

“I always knew you were still alive.”

Her voice had trembled, the corners of her eyes welling with tears as her lips contorted into a bright smile.

“I always knew we’d find you.”

And that’s when she felt Shaw’s lips upon hers.

No-one watching.

No elevators.

No guns.

No Samaritan.

No Martine.

No risk.

No danger.

Just a kiss.

Shaw’s hands gripped to Root’s jacket collar; similar to all those months ago, but with an entirely different motive. There was no quick kiss before being pushed away. This kiss was slow, languid and Shaw continued to pull Root closer, bunching the leather in her fists.

It was the end-of-the-movie type kiss, the one associated with a happy ending that is only every found in movies. It was the kiss that spoke more than words could, a kiss that said something no amount of words could ever articulate.

Root pressed further into Shaw, pushing the smaller woman until her back was firmly against the shaky concrete of the broken subway station. She nipped at Shaw’s lip, pulling at it with her teeth before sweeping her tongue over the reddened flesh. Shaw tried to regain a semblance of control; a constant power play that should have driven them both insane, but instead only served to fuel their attraction.

The kiss wasn’t sweet, nothing about them ever would be. But it was perfect.

It was tongues, and teeth, and fingernails; love and lust, gratefulness and grief.

It was admitting that they felt. Admitting that they cared. Admitting that they loved.

Their first _kiss_ kiss had been awkward.

But their first real kiss had been perfect.


	3. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shaw had been home for five days before they lost her again.

**Found**

 

Shaw had been home for five days before they lost her again.

They had kept her -bed-ridden as per the Doctor’s orders- in one of Finch’s safe-houses, and they had each taken shifts in looking after her. Finch, Fusco and Reese traded hours and days, whereas Root _always_ had the night-shift. She also spent most of the days that she wasn’t helping Finch rebuild the machine at the safe-house, usually joining in with Fusco’s shifts – much to his dismay.

The doors to the safe-house were kept locked. Three locks, two dead-bolts; and only the person on shift ever had the key. It stopped Samaritan getting in, and it stopped Shaw escaping.

She needed rest, but in typical Shaw fashion she refused to remain locked up. Finch had taken to reminding her that the last time she disobeyed them and left the subway station she was captured by Samaritan, but that only ever earned him a scowl.

Shaw had thought that Root may be easier to convince, but she was incredibly wrong. Root was even more reluctant to let her leave the bedroom, much less the apartment.

_“We’re keeping you safe Sameen.”_

Though Root undoubtedly made her time in the apartment much more sufferable; bringing her weapons to dismantle and rebuild- no bullets though- and sandwiches from her favourite places – though Shaw couldn’t convince her to bring a steak - and the nights with Root certainly weren’t _unbearable._ But all Shaw wanted to do was get out. The small apartment was driving her insane and her legs ached to be used.

It was Fusco’s shift, a rare afternoon when Root wasn’t there and Shaw found Fusco napping on the couch, arms folded over his chest and a newspaper tucked between them. His jacket lay over the back next to his head, and Shaw slipped it on, fumbling quietly for the keys in the pocket. Root had brought her clothes, underwear, shoes, but not a jacket – possibly to try and deter her from exchanging the warmth of the apartment for the bitter cold of winter in New York.

Leaving the building Shaw took note of her surroundings; of the cameras on the lamp-posts and traffic lights, of the harsh rumble of the people walking by and of the buildings and roads around her. Outside was not something she had seen for a while.

Fusco didn’t keep a wallet in his jacket, and Shaw had no means of credit so her only choice was to walk. She let her feet carry her out onto the busy streets, the loud chatter of people and the sheer number of them threw her slightly; she had spent the last four months in solitary confinement, she was lucky if she had seen more than ten people in that time. She had forgotten how loud people were.

Pulling Fusco’s jacket tighter around her she turned the corner, she knew where she could go.

/\/\/\/

“What do you mean she’s gone?” Root demanded, gripping the phone to her ear.

“I mean she stole my jacket, the keys, and left,” Fusco explained, “Like she said she would.”

“And you let her?”

“I was asleep Coco-Puff, and she had been too the last time I checked.”

Root took a deep breath and let her head fall back, “Where have they looked?”

“Couple of sandwich shops, the subway station, checked with some of the local taxi drivers; none remember seeing a short, angry woman today.”

“Tell them to check the steakhouses,” Root said, already having a particular one in mind.

/\/\/\/

“I knew I’d find you here,” Root grinned, taking the bar-stool next to Shaw, stealing a fry from her plate and taking a bite.

Shaw was hunched over one of her favourite meals, Fusco’s jacket rolled up at the arms, hanging like a sack on her shoulders and making her look like a three- year old in their father’s clothes.

“Best steakhouse in New York,” Shaw shrugged, scowling as Root popped the rest of the fry in her mouth.

“You had us worried,” Root chastised teasingly, watching as Shaw bit inelegantly into a chunk of medium rare.

“I was coming back,” Shaw rolled her eyes, “I just had to get out, exercise my muscles, eat real food.”

“The sandwiches weren’t good enough for you?”

“Nothing beats this place,” Shaw replied, offering Root another fry; a peace offering.

Root took it and laughed, “You realise we have to double security now, right?”

“So I have to see more of you? You practically live there.”

“I’m keeping you safe,” Root explained. “And inside. Besides, I’d like to think I keep you busy.”

“Guns, and food? That’s your idea of keeping me busy?”

“And me. I’d like to think my company keeps you _very_ busy.”

Shaw scoffed and turned back to her steak, “So are you here to drag me back?”

“I’ll let you finish your steak, maybe if you’re good I’ll even let you stay for dessert,” Root smiled. “I should probably let Harold know we found you though.”

/\/\/\/

Root paid the tab and ushered Shaw into the back of a taxi, not letting go of her arm the entire time until the door was closed and the cab was in motion.

“Don’t try that again,” she ordered, her expression serious.

“Or what?” Shaw was playful, teasing.

“The zip-ties won’t just be for fun,” Root smirked.


	4. Lower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “An inch lower and we could have matched,”

**Lower**

 

“Never known you to be on the wrong end of a bullet,” Reese joked, watching as Shaw gritted her teeth and pulled the 9 millimetre from her shoulder.

“You should see the other guy,” Shaw commented dryly, tossing the copper bullet and the bloodied forceps onto a cloth lying on the small table in the subway cart. 

Reese remained quiet as he watched the woman before him take a swig of the dusty liquor bottle and then pour some of the amber liquid on her open wound. She winced as the alcohol seeped into the small bullet hole, and she quickly took a clean rag to her shoulder.

“Pass me the dressing,” Shaw ordered Reese, gesturing to the open First Aid kit behind him. He did s he was instructed before stepping back to watch once more. Shaw dressed the wound with the attentive care of an ex-surgeon, bandaging the wound and blowing fallen wisps of her hair out of her face.

“Don’t tell Finch.”

“That you got shot, or that you bled all over his subway?”

Shaw scowled and looked up at Reese; “Either, I’m not sitting here while you do all the work just because I got shot.”

“What about Root?” Reese questioned.

“What _about_ Root?” Shaw retorted, gathering the bloody bullet and forceps into a bundle with the cloth.

Reese shot her a look and she rolled her eyes, “Root gets herself shot almost every other week, I don’t need to tell her that I got shot; I’ve had worse.”

/\/\/\

“Shit!” Shaw jolted back and clutched her shoulder. Root -still straddling her- sat up straight and looked down at Shaw, worried.

“That asshole Blakemore shot me,” Shaw explained, pulling her hand away from her throbbing shoulder. She had tried to pull Root’s sweater off when the twang of pain emanated from her latest wound, startling them both.

“You were shot?” Root questioned. Black fingernails began to trace lightly over Shaw’s left shoulder, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“It didn’t hit anything; I got the bullet out.”

“It hurts?” Root gently began pulling Shaw’s black shirt up, taking care not to jostle her shoulder.

“Only when I move,” Shaw remarked, “its fine.”

Root shook her head and tossed the black fabric onto the floor, inspecting Shaw’s wound.

“You did this by yourself?” Root asked, brushing over the white bandage. It was obvious she had, it was perfect; the neat, carefully applied square that Root had received from Shaw innumerable times before.

“It didn’t take much.”

Root looked at it a second longer, before she let out a small chuckle.  Shaw shot her a questioning glance.

“An inch lower and we could have matched,” she commented, tossing her hair to the side and tugging down the neck of her sweater to reveal the small scar on her left shoulder from where Shaw had shot her.

Shaw just rolled her eyes.


	5. Open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The door was never open but that meant nothing to Root.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Super tiny chapter; probably could have written more and fleshed out the moments, but it was a fun test to put entire scenes in 1-3 lines of dialogue I guess! 
> 
> Thank you for all the kind words and kudos <3

**Open**

 

Root had broken into her apartment seven times.

Once to tase and kidnap her.

_“Did you miss me? We’re going to have so much fun together.”_

Twice to enlist her in the Machine’s missions – without the use of a taser gun and zip-ties.

_“She needs your help.”_

_“And why should I help you?”_

_“We have fun together.”_

Thrice to have Shaw play doctor on an innumerable amount of wounds from all sorts of weapons.

_“What did you do now?”_

_“Things didn’t quite go to plan.”_

_“No kidding, you’re bleeding out on my floor.”_

And once with a bottle of expensive whiskey and a low seductive voice.

_“We’re celebrating Shaw.”_

Root had broken into her apartment seven times. The door was never open but that meant nothing to Root.


	6. Lipstick

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Root's damn lipstick got everywhere.

**Lipstick**

 

Shaw had never worn lipstick.

As a child she had dressed up with her mother’s lipstick, a deep and royal red that had reminded a young Sameen of blood and had thus served as such when she became a vampire, or a soldier, or a victim of Cluedo. The lipstick understandably hadn’t lasted long; and her dad had bought her mom a new, far more expensive one, and had bought Shaw corn-syrup and red food colouring so that she could make all the fake blood she desired, making lipstick completely irrelevant.

She didn’t wear lipstick as a teenager; she was primarily low maintenance and lipstick merely smeared over skin in heated make-outs in the backseats of cheap cars.

As an adult she bled more than enough to require fake-blood of any sort and lipstick was still a nuisance that stained the flesh of lovers; except that this time she was the one with the lipstick smeared across her skin.

Root wore lipstick.

Several shades of purpley-pink that darkened her smile and paled her skin by comparison. Root would kiss her and leave her lips painted with an echo of a colour that was distinctly Root, she would nip at her neck and leave the collar of her shirt perpetually stained with a deep pink, she would tease at her nipple with a practised tongue and leave a circular smear on her breast the colour of a bruise. Root painted her with shades of pink that clashed with her skin and washed away in rosy rivulets. She left evidence of stolen kisses in dark corners, evidence that if Shaw didn’t catch, Reese did.

Root marked her in kisses, and Shaw pretended to hate it.

She’d complain about the stains on her clothes, the sticky paint on her skin, and the un-caught smears of colour that resulted in teasing remarks from Reese, or curious questions from an all-knowing Finch.

But in truth, she didn’t mind it.

In the darkness of the night when Root was asleep, she had looked at herself in the mirror; flesh bared and covered only in splashes of a gaudy colour. There was something about the way it looked, and the way it made her feel; it was evidence that Root existed, that _they_ existed.

Plus, she would mark Root in her own way; leaving similarly purple hues that couldn’t be washed away.


	7. Shield

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You ever play my shield again and I'll shoot you myself."

**Shield**

 

Gang Wars were something Shaw tried to avoid by principle.

They were messy, unplanned, and crowded. An army of people fighting for a cause the individuals didn’t fully understand. Mob-mentality and violence for the mere sake of violence.

They’d been given forty-six numbers today; perpetrators, victims -most of them both.

The three key players were entangled in a web of family and business affairs. A lethal cocktail of international fear-mongers, seasoned killers, and unhappy spouses.

**_Damien Linaire_**. International Arms Dealer. Leader of a notorious gang linked to the deaths of over twenty people in the last month. Wanted by 2 Federal Agencies and 8 Gangs worldwide.

**_Alise Daina._** Financial Advisor to several of the richest men and women in New York. Wife to Damien Linaire. Mother of two.  Trained Assassin.

**_Martins Daina._** Alise’s father. Influential Mob boss out for Linaire’s blood.

It came to a head in an old abandoned ware-house in a rocky district known for corrupt police-officers and gang violence. Shaw and Reese had been tasked with diffusing the situation while Finch held Alise in a safe-house and Fusco tried to keep Linaire in the precinct on an unpaid parking ticket.

There were already twelve people dead.

Daina was down, eighty-three years old with a bullet in his knee and his shoulder. He wasn’t dead yet, and they were determined to keep it that way. The subservient minions of either side were raging a metallic storm, firing illegal weapons in any direction and at anything that moved. They had lost their leaders -the reason for their fight- but they continued; they were in it for the brutality, not the story.

Shaw and Reese hid behind a dusty stack of crates, Finch in their ear and their minds spinning with ways to stop the battle waging only a few feet away from them.

With the shattering of glass, something came hurtling through one of the spray-painted windows. Shaw and Reese recognised it instantly as tear gas and moved quickly to cover their faces with their jackets. The canister began to spill and a cloud of vicious gas billowed from the metal, seeping into the throats and nostrils of the infantry. Sensing a chance, the mayhem twins ran towards the only door which was now adorned in shrapnel and bullet-holes, escaping into the fresh air of the outside and locking the door.

“She thought you could use some help,” Root’s voice echoed from behind them and they turned to face her.

“That was you?”

Root nodded, “She told me to.”

Shaw shook her head and in the silence she focused in on the building they had just fled from. CS took around thirty seconds to take effect, and the effects could last anywhere up to an hour in the conditions within the ware-house. She could hear the heavy coughing and spluttering of the people inside, but there was no way to tell if everyone was affected, and what that effect was.

“What do we do?” Root questioned, asking both The Machine and the pair in front of her.

“Leave them in there to claw their own eyes out?” Reese suggested, switching the magazine in his gun and pocketing the empty one.

“How many’s left?”

“Thirty, at least,” Shaw offered, “Ten each?”

Root smirked and looked at the door. “You think it’s safe?”

“Nope,” Shaw was blunt. “But it’s the best chance we got.”

How they ended up walking, guns blazing into a gas-chamber filled with incapacitated gang members, they weren’t quite sure. But they got them down- mostly kneecapped- and stripped of any weapons, and they stood keeping watch over the bodies, counting and re-counting the number.

It had looked as though they were winning.

“Shaw!”

Shaw spun on her heel to face Root, her heart racing as she noted the panic in her voice.

It was then that she heard the gun-shot, and within a second she felt something knock her to the ground.

A second gun-shot. A third.

She wasn’t shot.

Bruised indefinitely. But not shot.

Root was on top of her, pressed against her.

“Seriously?” Shaw grumbled, pushing Root off of her and getting to her feet. Her body hummed with pain after colliding with the concrete floor.

Root stood to her feet with a lop-sided smile, “We missed one.”

Shaw looked over at where the first gun-shot had originated, and sure enough, in its place was a fallen body with two gunshots to the chest.

“You ever play my shield again and I’ll shoot you myself.”


	8. Tongue-Tied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Tongue-tied Miss Shaw?"  
> "Just a little tied up right now Finch."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> M-Rated.
> 
> (I have never written anything particularly M-Rated before, and I did /try/ to keep it T-Rated.)   
> Again thank you for the kudos and lovely comments <3

**Tongue-Tied**

 

Sometimes Root left for months on end. Unannounced. Unexplained. She had it down to an art. It was impossible to believe anyone could just disappear the way Root did; she did it with a ghost-like sensibility, vanishing into the open air, nothing tangible to pin her down. Root lived day to day with very little; she didn’t seem to need much when she had Her.

Root left, but she _always_ came back. Unheralded in the middle of the night or in the cold hours of morning, she showed up in the middle of jobs, she showed up when Shaw was alone; there wasn’t a pattern. It was just that she returned.

This morning in the ungodly hour of 4am she had arrived at Shaw’s door, wrapped in her jacket with a beanie on her head, her teeth chattering as she clutched her arms to warm up.

“Hey sweetie,” she grinned, stepping in uninvited.

“Root.”

A cup of coffee later and Root looked indefinitely more human; colours that weren’t blue or purple seeping into her skin and re-animating her person like a drop of ink on silk. Shaw, after a cup of coffee, felt more up to listening to Root regale her adventures, and less like murdering her for waking her up at four in the morning, but only a little.

“I got you something,” Root smiled, rustling for something in the pocket of her jacket.

Shaw watched her with a raised eyebrow; Root’s gifts were nothing if not unconventional in the highest degree.

A military grade weapon banned for sale in the US. She now had three in her fridge.

A weapon so impressively modified it was probably globally illegal. She kept it in a box under her bed.

Of course, not all of Root’s gifts were macabre, or weaponry; Shaw had been given expensive chocolates, tourist trinkets, opulent scarves and foreign liquors. She had given up asking how Root could afford any of it, unsatisfied with the smirk and gesture towards her ear, or the declaration that Shaw deserved ‘nice’ things.

This time Root pulled out a long box, sliding it along the counter towards Shaw. “I thought you might like it.”

Inside the box was a pocket knife with a leather bound handle and what looked like the cosmos imprinted on the blade.

“It’s flashy, but it’s sharp,” Root added, watching Shaw run a finger over the tip of the blade only to find a bead of blood erupt from her fingertip instantly.

Shaw admired the knife some more before placing it back in the box, and getting to her feet “You have to stop buying me things.”

“Is that a thank you Shaw?” Root laughed, turning in her seat as Shaw walked over to her.

“No. It’s a request,” Shaw replied, leaning over Root and resting her hands on the table at either side of her; effectively trapping her in.

Shaw leaned in and pressed her lips to Root’s; the scent of coffee lingered in the air and the taste of the sugar Root used to over-saturate her coffee tasted sweet on Shaw’s tongue as she sought entrance to her mouth. Root granted access and brought an ice-cold hand to clasp the small of Shaw’s back, sending shivers and goose-bumps flooding out from the point of contact.

“That was a thank you,” Shaw whispered, pulling back only to whisper the words against Root’s lips before re-uniting them in a kiss.

/\/\/\/\

It was 7am and Root’s head was between her legs. She could barely register the sound of the phone ringing through the waves of pleasure and the heightened sensations, much less realise that she was supposed to answer it. She let it ring to a silence, digging her fingernails into Root’s skull and digging her heels into the mattress.

There wasn’t much of a pattern to Root’s reappearances, but it usually involved this.

The second time the phone rang; Shaw mindlessly reached out for it, groaning as she fumbled for it on the bedside table. Root in retaliation flicked her tongue against her clit, forcing Shaw’s attention back to the brunette between her legs and the over-whelming stimulation erupting through her already exhausted body.

Her back arched off the bed and she released a loud moan intermingled with Root’s name. She brought the phone to her ear and tugged at Root’s hair, forcing her to look up at her with those wicked brown eyes and a salacious smirk.

“Miss Shaw?” Finch’s voice came through the line and Shaw groaned internally.

“Finch.” Her concentration on the phone call made her lose track of Root who had begun to kiss her way up her stomach, nipping at her flesh and leaving a wet trail on her skin that prickled in the cool air.

“I was wondering if you had heard from Mr. Reese lately,” Finch questioned. “It’s been twenty-four hours without word from him, and he doesn’t seem to be answering his cell.”

Zoe Morgan was in town for a couple of days. Shaw could guarantee that was where the big lug was.

“John? I haven’t-“ Shaw was cut off with a gasp as Root pressed a thumb sharply against her clit. “I haven’t heard from him.”

She could hear Root’s snicker and she squeezed her eyes shut, trying to block out the feeling of Root’s tongue on her breast and her thumb gently building her up to yet another orgasm.

“Are you sure?” Finch sounded worried, but Shaw didn’t have the brain capacity left to settle him, and she wanted the phone call to be over as soon as possible.

“Yes,” Shaw bit down a moan as Root pushed two fingers into her; her body was tired and over-sensitive, and Root knew it. “Don’t worry about him Harold, I’m sure he’s fine.”

“Are you okay Miss. Shaw?”

Shaw didn’t reply as she rolled her hips against Root’s hand, watching as Root slid her other hand between her own legs. Shaw admired the open-mouthed gasp it pulled from her lover’s lips.

“Miss. Shaw?”

Root caught Shaw watching her and grinned, shifting her hips so she could grind down on Shaw’s leg, smearing the evidence of her arousal- and impatience- on Shaw’s skin.

“Tongue tied Miss Shaw?” Harold asked. Shaw snorted.

“Just a little tied up right now Finch.”

Ending the call Shaw tossed aside the phone carelessly, hearing it fall onto the floor with a dense thud.

“Brat.”

Root laughed. “You love it.”


	9. Tactile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Touch.

**Tactile**

 

She was tactile; tangible. She was there.

Root clasped at her hand, running her fingers over the lukewarm skin of the unconscious woman.

“Shaw?”

She was real. They had found her.

-

For the last four months her mind had conjured up ghostly fragments of the woman in the chair beside her.

Memories, hallucinations; they had seemed real, but in every one a single touch would dissipate Root into a cloud of colour, dust, nothingness.

Reaching a tentative -and needle pricked arm out- she brushed against Root’s knee. She felt the warmth, the coarse fabric. She was there. She was palpable. This was real.

She could touch her, and she wouldn’t disappear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learnt with this one that I have had the wrong definition of this word in my head my entire life. I had associated it with having tact, or being tactical :(


	10. Plead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I need your help"

**Plead**

 

“I need your help.”

Shaw’s voice was quiet, and she hated that it had come to this; hated that she had to rely on people, hated that she had to rely on Root.

Root turned from her place at Harold’s desk, stilled her fingers on the keyboard and looked up at Shaw; a playful smile dancing on her lips- thrilled at the idea of Shaw needing her. “What for?”

“I need you to hide someone. The way you hid us.”

“Who?” Root questioned. Her smile faltered as she observed Shaw’s morose expression; she was worried, and Shaw didn’t worry easily.

“Gen.”

“Harold already gave her an identity,” Root said. Genrika Zhirova was Harold’s ward, but Shaw’s care. Finch had paid for Gen to have an existence suiting of an intelligent young girl, but Shaw gave her a life. Shaw gave her a peculiar sense of family and fragments of a childhood in her brief, sporadic visits or phone-calls. It was all Shaw could give, and more than she would ever admit to giving.

“It’s not deep enough. It protected her from the Russian’s, but it won’t hold out against Samaritan. They’ll do anything to get to us; I won’t let them go through her,” Shaw’s voice was almost fragile below the usual bark, and Root wondered if Samaritan had already made a start; if Shaw’s concern was less paranoia and more a warranted uneasiness.

“Have they?” Root asked, her mind already formulating various methods of hiding the pre-teen further in the blind-spots of the nefarious God. She sensed Her God do the same, a wordless connection but Root knew The Machine was too human to ignore an imperilled child.

“I don’t know,” Shaw answered honestly. “Gen found a bug in her dorm, and she said her phone calls have an odd background noise now; something barely noticeable but-“

“She noticed it,” Root finished. “You think she’s being monitored?”

“I don’t think she’s safe,” Shaw said, ambiguously answering Root’s question. “Can you help me?”

“What about Harold?”

“Finch said there were safeguards in place,” Shaw said dryly. “Then he said we could blow our covers by interfering.”

“So you came to me?” Root’s voice lifted slightly at the end and she looked at the worry etched into Shaw’s features.

“Root, please,” Shaw was pleading, her eyes begging and staring intently into Root’s own. “You’re the only person I know who could help.”

“I can’t promise anything, but I’ll try.”

In her head Root promised not to give up until she was sure Gen had the most flawless cover possible. There was no way she could let Shaw down, not this Shaw with the fear, and the vulnerability that she displayed without the usual mask of bitterness.

For Shaw to plead, for Shaw to beg, for Shaw to shed all of the walls she built up to protect herself; it was huge. Gen meant something to her; Gen was something she had to protect at all costs.

Root had observed people for years, and one thing she knew for certain was that there was always something that could break them. It had been her job to recognise these things, to use them against people. It was a key; leverage that made people do ridiculous things. There was always something people valued, always something that people would do anything to protect. With Root, she had The Machine, -and maybe even Team Machine too- but she knew with Shaw, it was Gen, wholeheartedly and without competition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was planned out to be a silly, happy one... whoops!


	11. Heavy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Her gun was heavy in her pocket, her head was heavy with paradoxes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Darkness up ahead... and a rather long chapter that I was torn between putting it here, or uploading it as a stand-alone fic.  
> Thank you again for reading, commenting and kudo'ing.

**Heavy**

 

The crumbling rock pulled at her hair and the slender body kept her pushed up against the wall. The alley was cold, but the mouth on hers was warm, and willing, and welcoming, and the hand at her hip left a searing mark through her clothes. She experienced in fragments; the feeling of the leg between her thighs was abstract from the scent of brunette hair that tickled her nose, and she could perceive the hand at her hip, but couldn’t place its twin.

Her mind was hazy, her skin cold, and her heart racing; she felt like pieces of a jigsaw waiting to be re-united into the bigger picture. With every piece she began to remember what that bigger picture was; who she was, but regardless of her determination she couldn’t assemble the parts.

There were still too many missing.

Her teeth nipped at supple flesh and her tongue tasted blood. Her ears heard a groan and her throat vibrated. The body against her pushed harder and the wall pushed her back. She let them spar, pinned between them both and willing conceding. One of her hands grasped at the body; the cold leather soft against her touch and the coarse denim tight against familiar curves.

Her stomach twisted, and her chest felt heavy. She felt as though she had lost something, and found something all at once. She felt an obligation to do something and yet an unrelated burning sense of accomplishment. The body withdrew and they breathed in tandem; heavy breaths gasping for the frozen air.

Heavy breaths and a heavy weight in her pocket.

The hand that had not explored the body of the woman before her was still firmly in the pocket of her thick, woollen jacket. Her finger was clasped around something cold and smooth; itching with an obligation she couldn’t remember.

“Shaw.”

The body spoke, breathless and broken, and she stared at it. Fifteen months and Root was still Root. Save for the dark shadows beneath her eyes and the missing brightness in her smile, she was almost exactly the same woman Shaw had left behind.

Shaw opened her mouth to speak, her hand wrapped tightly around the metal object in her pocket, her finger poised and ready. Her mouth failed her, her lips forming words that her voice wouldn’t speak. Root’s body was still pressed against her own; her form was something Shaw could recognise even through the layers of winter clothing. She wondered absently why that was something she remembered, why, in her state of disconnect, she could still recollect Root’s scent and distinguish her body- something she could barely do to herself.

Something felt off though, a harshness that was unfamiliar.

Something pressed beneath her ribs, and her mind linked it to Root’s missing hand; associating it with the fear in the once bright hazel eyes. Her finger twitched and she looked down at where the object was pressing into her skin.

“It was only fair.”

Shaw heard the words but failed to distinguish their meaning; she willed her thoughts to clear and for the fogginess of her mind to fade, and she stared at the gun in Root’s hand.

“You drop yours and I’ll drop mine,” Root said, gesturing with her head to Shaw’s pocket.

Shaw clasped her hand tighter around the metal in her pocket, sensing the barrel of a gun, feeling the rubber of the grip and the sudden memory of obligation.

Kill.

_Why?_

“They got to you,” Root said, as though a way of explanation for the questions flooding through Shaw’s unclear head. “I can help you.”

Shaw shook her head. A man’s voice rang in echoes telling her all sorts of things that she didn’t want hear while Root’s fluttered through, words mingling with their contradictions. Her voice, his voice. Kill her, kill him. Greer. Root. Martine. Root. Samaritan. The Machine.

Her free hand fell back against the brick wall her back rested on, her head screamed and she closed her eyes.

Shoot her. It was what she was here to do.

Root was on her side. _Was she?_

“Shaw,” Root’s voice wavered and she placed her gun on the ground, placing both of her hands on Shaw’s arms. “Listen to me.”

Samaritan had taken her. Samaritan had taken her and changed her.

“They drugged you.”

Shaw felt her finger burn with anticipation; all she had to do was pull the trigger. Root wasn’t even armed.

Her gun was heavy in her pocket, her head was heavy with paradoxes.

Kissing Root had felt familiar.

Trying to kill Root felt familiar.

She pushed Root away from her with a violent shake of her shoulders.

She still didn’t feel real, she still felt as though she were mere slithers of a human body. Nothing was tangible, or true, other than the weapon concealed in her pocket and the woman who left tremors on her lips and shivers on her spine. They pulled at her, grasping at halves and shredding her into more and more tiny pieces that she couldn’t place together. Her head spun and her fingers pulled against the brick, scraping into the pads of her fingers.

“Shaw?”

The heavy weight in her pocket seemed to pull her off balance and she took a step, pulling her head up and looking directly at Root; the subtle curl of her hair, the concern on her lips mingling with fear in her eyes.

“Please.”

She had kissed Root. Once upon a time kissing Root had been something she had to do; something more important than finding another plan or saying her goodbyes. Once upon a time protecting Root had meant more than her own life.

She remembered when Martine had sneered at her, words like _girlfriend,_ and _lover_ tossed around as if they were synonymous with Root. It had been her favourite game, injecting needles into Shaw’s skin and demanding answers whilst threatening the people that meant the most to Shaw. The threats had hurt more than the needles; had messed with her more than the cocktail of drugs. Martine hit a nerve with Root, and she had recognised it instantly; finding more and more ways to torture Shaw with macabre ideas.

Martine had disappeared, suddenly, and Shaw hadn’t cared to learn the names of the other operatives who had been brought in to pry their way under her skin. None of them had been as effective as Martine, none of them knew about Root.

But something changed, her body became numb and her conscious mind almost blank. That’s when the torture had stopped, and the _training_ had begun.

Samaritan had drugged her and hollowed her out until they could make her a toy-soldier; a familiar face that Team Machine would trust, but with a hidden agenda they would never know. She could have been their best asset. Except the hollowing hadn’t gone deep enough.

Pull the trigger. Her only orders.

She heard Root’s voice as though she were drowning and Root were calling out to her from the land. Her heartbeat hammered in her chest and she could hear the incessant beating loud in her ears. Kill her.

A single gun-shot rang out and she watched as Root dropped to the floor, a wound in her stomach spilling a vivid red.

Kill Her.

Shaw watched. Root looked up at her and begged, clutching at her stomach with blood-stained hands.

Her fingers still clasped the weapon, but her finger didn’t itch to pull the trigger. Not again.

Her legs gave out beneath her and she stared, eye-level with the woman who was both a lover, and a nemesis. She pulled her hand out of her pocket just as Root reached for her gun.  A glimmer of blood erupted from Root’s mouth and formed a rivulet down her chin.

“Would you really let me die?” Root asked, pointing the gun shakily toward Shaw.

“I…” Shaw began, but she was distracted by the blood staining Root’s lips. _Don’t know. I don’t know._

Something shifted within her and she forced herself to inch closer to the end of Root’s gun, “I can’t.”

Root looked at her, pained, broken, and she placed the weapon back down on the concrete. “I know.”

Shaw moved quickly to press her hands against the wound, staunching the blood flow more than Root could manage. The blood seeped through the gaps in her fingers and she couldn’t help but think how messy this was. The blood, and her thoughts, and her duties, and her will. She didn’t have autonomy over her own existence; it had been removed bit by bit with fiery drugs and fifteen-months of being bound to a bed-frame, vulnerable to words, and weapons, and suggestions.

She was a soldier.

Part of her was the soldier who had been shattered by Samaritan, and rebuilt with all the wrong parts in all the wrong places.

The other part of her was the soldier who had watched her Dad die, the soldier who had excelled in med school but failed in practise, she was the soldier who had given her life for her team. She was the soldier who had realised she felt something impossibly powerful for Root the moment Martine’s bullet had hit her.

She wished it had killed her.

She had given her life to protect Root’s. Yet here she was alive and responsible for the ice that crept its way through Root’s limbs.

Kill her.

Save her.

Kill her.

Save her.

Kill her.

_Could she save her?_


End file.
